Your Parenting Mojo - Respectful, research-based parenting ideas to help kids thrive – Details, episodes & analysis

What to Do When Parenting Tools Don’t Work? I know that when you start using new parenting tools, things don't always go according to plan. Your kids don't say what you think they will, or maybe you perceive that their behavior is just kind of crappy, or maybe your partner isn't on board with your ideas. In this episode I address what to do about all of these challenges, as well as how to use the tools I work with to address difficult topics like children wanting ever more snack foods, ever more screen time, and refusing to go to school. We hear from parents who have managed to address tricky challenges - including a child with a skin condition who must take a bath daily and who was successfully extending the dinner/running around/reading books process until bedtime was delayed as well. Once the child's parents came to see what needs the child was trying to meet, bath time suddenly wasn't a problem anymore. I share some realizations that parents have had about their place in the world as they've engaged with my work and how I plan to shift the ways I talk about these issues moving forward. I also invite you to celebrate with my book Parenting Beyond Power's first birthday by baking (or buying) some cupcakes! One of many parents' favorite ideas in the book was the feelings and needs cupcakes, which makes it easy to visualize your most common feelings and needs. We've made some flags you can print and use with your children to identify your (and their) feelings and needs. Share them on social media and be invited to a group coaching call with me later in September, and stick them to the fridge as a reminder of how to connect with your kids - and yourself! https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1nTLKzk1pdy9cwJQd2iMJolZNsz0gJL25

Understanding Menstrual Cycle Awareness This episode was...unplanned. :-) A couple of months ago I interviewed Dr. Louise Newson on the topic of menopause. Dr. Newson is a medical doctor and focused very heavily on Hormone Replacement Therapy as a treatment that everyone who menstruates should at least consider, and I knew I wanted to do an episode with someone who doesn't hold that belief as well.   I found Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer of The Red School, and really appreciated their book Wise Power. As I usually do before recording an interview I read their other co-authored book Wild Power, and I realized there was a 'missing' episode on the topic of Menstrual Cycle Awareness. We can't really talk about being aware of the changes that are happening to our bodies during menopause if we don't know what has happened to our bodies throughout our menstruating years.   When I read Wild Power I felt a deep sense of sadness that I was just discovering this now, as my own years of menstruation wind down - but also a deep sense of hope that I can help Carys develop a much closer relationship with her own body than I had with mine.   We'll answer questions like:

• What phases does my body go through each month?
• How can I start becoming more aware of these phases through Menstrual Cycle Awareness?
• How can I align my activities with my energy levels, creativity, and arousal - even in the real world, which wants me to go-go-go all the time?
• How is my inner critic aligned with my cycle, and how can I use its knowledge to help me?
• How can I navigate Menstrual Cycle Awareness if I've had a difficult relationship with my periods and with fertility?

  I'd encourage you to listen to this episode if:

• You menstruate and want to better understand how menstruation affects your life
• You're raising a child who will menstruate and want to prepare them to feel 'at home' in their bodies
• You love someone who menstruates and want to be better attuned to them
• You're raising a child who will never menstruate, but you want them to appreciate menstruation and know how to effectively support people who menstruate.

In other words, everyone will get something out of this episode!   Learning Membership The Learning Membership will open again soon!  The membership helps you to support your child’s intrinsic love of learning, while also equipping them with the skills they’ll need to succeed in the age of AI. You’ll learn how to see and follow your child’s interests so you can support them in deep inquiries.  You won’t have to drag them through it like you would a workbook or a curriculum (so no need to reward them with screen time!) because they will WANT to learn.  They’ll be excited to do it, and they’ll bring you along for the ride. If you already know you’re in, you can sign up for the Learning Membership. Click the banner to learn more! https://yourparentingmojo.com/learningmembership/  ...

Exploring Marriage, Autism, Race, and Parenting Together

Want to know how my autism self-diagnosis has affected my relationship with my husband? (I will apologize to autistic listeners here as an ableist perspective is still something we're working on, and he also uses some outdated terminology probably from an old book he's started twice - but not yet finished - on supporting partners with Asperger's Syndrome.)

 

Curious about whether he identifies as Filipino-American... or not? And how his perspective on race differs from mine?

 

Want to hear how he sent a chicken up into space...and then found out what the two pink lines of a pregnancy test mean?

 

Last year, when we were coming up on our 200th podcast episode, I asked my husband Alvin if he would be willing to record a podcast episode. I had envisioned listeners asking the questions and him answering - but he wanted me to join as well!

 

One of the first things we learned was that Alvin cannot be succinct. (Well, technically speaking, this was not a new lesson for me - and interviewer Iris had tried really hard to prepare him for succinctness by asking for his 'elevator pitch' - but he just couldn't do it!)

 

So we ended up cutting the episode when it was already over an hour and we hadn't covered half of the questions listeners had submitted...and interviewers Iris and Corrine graciously agreed to return for a Part 2. So here it is!

 

Other episodes mentioned

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• 175: I’ll be me; can you be you?
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• 200: Ask Alvin Anything (Part 1!)
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Jump to Highlights

01:22Introducing this episode

04:28Alvin talks about how Jen's autism diagnosis helps their relationship while Jen shares how it helps in their daily life and parenting.

12:47Alvin and Jen talk about how they decided to become parents.

25:10Alvin discusses his upbringing in a predominantly White area, his evolving awareness of his Filipino heritage, and how his wife Jen's advocacy work has shaped his understanding of race and culture.

38:13Alvin talks about his journey from wanting to be seen as White to embracing his Filipino heritage and identifying as a Brown person.

46:32Alvin encourages dads to be actively involved in parenting, prioritize their partners, and be present in family life. 57:15Alvin and the hosts engage in a quickfire round of questions, discussing topics from parenting to personal preferences.

01:00:50Wrapping up

When you’re learning a new skill, information is critical.  Without that, it’s very difficult to make any kind of meaningful change.   But I see a parallel between learning new skills and respectful parenting: I like to say that love between parent and child is necessary but not sufficient - and that respect is the missing ingredient.  With learning a new skill, knowledge is necessary - but not sufficient.   And support is the missing ingredient.   You might remember from our conversation with Dr. Chris Niebauer a while ago that our overactive left brains tend to make up stories about our experiences to integrate these experiences into the narratives we tell about ourselves.   If we’re “the kind of person who triumphs through adversity,” a setback will be taken in stride.  If we’re “the kind of person who has been hurt,” each new individual hurt makes much more of a mark.  The new experiences have to be made to fit with the framework that’s already in place.   Especially when you’re learning a skill related to difficult experiences you’ve had, your left brain wants to keep itself safe.  It might tell you: “I don’t need to do this.  Things aren’t that bad.  I’ll just wait until later / tomorrow / next week.”   And when that happens, you need support.  That support can be from a great friend, although sometimes you don’t want even your closest friends to know that you shout at or smack your child.   Therapy can be really helpful - but it’s also really expensive.   Sometimes the thing that’s most helpful is someone who’s learning the tools alongside you (so they aren’t trying to look back and remember what it was like to be in your situation; theirs is different, but they are struggling too…) who isn’t a regular presence in your life.   There’s no danger you’re going to run into them at the supermarket, or a kid’s birthday party.   You can actually be really honest with them and know it won’t come and bite you in the butt.   That’s what today’s guests, Marci and Elizabeth, discovered when they started working together.  Separated by cultural differences, fourteen(!) time zones, and very different lives, they found common ground in their struggles and have developed a deep and lasting friendship.   If you’d like to work on taming your triggered feelings - and get help from your own Accountabuddy in the process - the Taming Your Triggers workshop is for you.   Sign up for the waitlist and we'll let you know once enrollment re-opens. Click the image below to learn more. https://yourparentingmojo.com/tamingyourtriggers/      

How does trauma affect us?   Yes, we feel it in our brains - we get scared, frustrated, and angry - often for reasons we don’t fully understand.   But even if our brains have managed to cover up the trauma; to paper a veneer over it so everything seems fine, that doesn’t mean everything actually is fine - because as our guest in this episode, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk says: The Body Keeps The Score.   What he means is that the effects of the trauma you’ve experienced don’t just go away, and can’t just be papered over.  Your body will still hold the evidence in tension, headaches, irritability (of minds and bowels), insomnia...and all of this may come out when your child does something you wish they wouldn’t.   Perhaps it’s something your parent always used to resent doing, and made it super clear to you every time they did it for you.   Perhaps it was something you did as a child and were punished for doing (maybe you were even hit for it...your body is literally remembering this trauma when your child reproduces the behavior).   Lack of manners, talking back, making a mess, not doing as you were told, being silly...even if logically you now know that these are relatively small things, when your child does them it brings back your body’s memories of what happened to you.   Dr. van der Kolk helps us to understand more about how this shows up for us.  Sometimes understanding can be really helpful.  But sometimes you also need new tools, and support as you learn them, and accountability.   If you’re struggling with your reactions to your child’s difficult behavior - whether you’re going into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn mode, the Taming Your Triggers workshop can help.   Sign up for the waitlist and we'll let you know once enrollment re-opens. Click the image below to learn more. https://yourparentingmojo.com/tamingyourtriggers/         Dr. van der Kolk's Book:

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (Affiliate link).

      Jump to highlights:

• (01:00) Introducing Dr. van der Kolk
• (01:58) Invitation to the Taming Your Triggers Workshop
• (02:56) A note on some technical difficulties we had while recording this episode
• (03:14) People often want easy answers: Talking about why we feel like we need pills and alcohol to deal with trauma and not make use of other methods which seem more beneficial
• (08:16) "We become who we are based on the experiences we had and...

When we're having a hard time interacting with our family members, it's pretty common for our first reaction to be: "I need this person (or these people!) to change their behavior" - especially when this person (or these people!) are children.  After all, we've been around for longer and we know what we're doing and we were fine before our children started misbehaving, right?   My guest today, parent-of-three Chrystal, had encountered this mentality not just about her children, but also about her husband.  In fact, when she went to couple's therapy with her husband it was with a sense of relief: "Finally, I'm going to find out what's wrong with him, because there's nothing wrong with me!"   She always figured: "If that person didn't act like that then I wouldn't need to react the way I'm reacting...and I legitimately thought that everyone else was responsible for my behavior."   Then she realized that her husband wasn't responsible for how she was feeling...she was.   Now she was ready to make the same leap related to her relationship with her spirited children, but needed new tools.  They would melt down over every tiny issue (not enough honey on the oatmeal!  Now not enough cream!  I don't WANT to get dressed!), and Chrystal found herself constantly scrambling to placate them.   Join us for a conversation about the new ideas she's learned, and how her children now don't cooperate blindly because she's forcing them, but express their agency while finding ways to collaborate that also meet their needs.  They have real agency in her family (they know she'll hear them and respect their ideas) and because of this, the little issues that used to provoke regular meltdowns are easily solved.  And Chrystal is learning how to set boundaries so she doesn't get walked all over - by her children, or by other members of her family.   Want to make a similar shift in your own interactions with your children?  My Taming Your Triggers workshop will help.   Sign up for the waitlist and we'll let you know once enrollment re-opens. Click the image below to learn more. https://yourparentingmojo.com/tamingyourtriggers/       Jump to highlights:

• (01:00) Inviting listeners to join the Taming Your Triggers workshop
• (04:43) A little bit about Chrystal
• (11:06) Chrystal’s journey as a parent
• (13:58) How Chrystal found it difficult to build lasting relationships with parents who were raising their children the same way they were raised and how she found her people in the Taming Your Triggers community.
• (16:32) The fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses and how Chrystal resonated to the fawn response.
• (18:22) The first time Chrystal was able to connect what she’s feeling in her body with her belief systems
• (20:36) As the eldest of eight children, Chrystal felt that it was her responsibility to make sure everyone is happy when her mother couldn’t cope due to severe postnatal depression, and this has continued on with her character now that they’ve grown up
• (24:51)  When Chrystal decided to set boundaries and have it respected, she found out that her family’s issues can resolve themselves without her getting involved
• (28:14) The profound shift with for Chrystal in terms of what changed in her family after going through the Taming Your Triggers workshop is that she is now able to see situations as more than a win-lose situation
• (32:20) With two...

This episode kicks off a series on the intersection of parenting and food.   We begin today with a conversation with Dr. Lindo Bacon, where we bust a LOT of myths about the obesity epidemic that is said to be plaguing people in the United States and other countries that follow a similar diet.   The messaging we get from government entities seems pretty simple: being fat is bad for you. It causes increased risk for a host of diseases as well as early death. If you're fat, you should lose weight because then your risk of getting these diseases and dying early will be reduced.   But what if this wasn't true?   What if this messaging had been established by people who own companies that manufacture weight loss products who sit on panels that advise international governmental entities like the World Health Organization?   What if body fat was actually protective for your health?   We dig into all these questions and more in this provocative interview.   We'll continue this series with episodes looking specifically at sugar, as well as supporting parents who have or continue to struggle with disordered eating, and how to support children in developing eating habits that will serve them for a lifetime, not just get the vegetables into them today.   Jump to highlights:

• (01:00) Introducing Dr. Lindo Bacon and starting our series of episodes on the intersection of parenting and food
• (02:22) Stripping the word ‘fat’ of it’s pejorative meaning and reclaiming the term while acknowledging that it may be jarring for some people
• (03:09) Kicking off the conversation with how we measure health using BMI and how it might not be accurate
• (05:03) The resistance to Katherine Flegal’s seminal research in weight and longevity
• (05:49) The development of the Body Mass Index was with scientific bias to fit the bell curve
• (07:30) Higher body weight does not necessarily mean a person has greater risk of poor health
• (10:59) We actually know that the research is highly exaggerated in terms on the role that it plays on health
• (13:16) Dr. Bacon’s turning point: When they found out that BMI recommendations were created by an organization funded by pharmaceutical companies who produce weight loss drugs and products
• (17:35) Taking the issue one step further with the American Medical Association’s recommendation whether to categorize obesity as a disease or not
• (19:19) The Obesity Paradox is an observation in the research that people who are obese who get the same diseases as those with ‘normal’ weight are living longer
• (21:15) The concept of dieting just doesn’t work according to the data
• (30:33) A story of Dr. Bacon’s and their father’s knee problems
• (34:40) Individual factors only accounts to 25% to somebody’s total health outcomes and social determinants account to about 60%
• (42:05) It is cool right now to be your authentic self but not everyone can so easily be their authentic self when their authentic selves are not valued by society at large
• (45:48) Improving the health of individuals is more communal than individual

  Resource Links:

• Health at Every Size, by...

Many of us haven't been in each other's homes for a while now, but pretty soon we'll be getting together inside again.  And our children will be heading inside, in their friends' houses.   People store guns inside.   Are you certain that nobody owns a gun in any of the places your child plays?   If they do own a gun, are you certain they store it safely?   If not, you need to ask.   That's one issue we discuss in this interview with Dr. Nina Agrawal, a board-certified pediatrician who has expertise in violence against children.  She co-founded the Gun Safety Committee for the American Academy of Pediatrics in New York State, and is leading the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force for the American Medical Women’s Association.   Another issue is the gun violence that is primarily faced by children of color, which turns out to affect a far greater number of children.   And how is this all linked to the Peloton recall?  You'll have to listen in to find out...   Jump to highlights here:

• (01:00) Indoor playdates are ramping up...will your child be safe?
• (02:29) Introducing Dr. Nina Agrawal, pediatrician and co-founder of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Gun Safety Committee in New York State
• (02:58) Understanding how big is the scope of gun violence against children
• (06:15) The Dickey Amendment: Explaining the massive lack of data and research on gun violence and safety
• (11:24) The ways that gun violence affects children that we might not expect
• (12:32) “I get woken up at night to the sound of gunshots.”
• (17:09) The racial disparity in how children are affected by gun violence
• (20:46) More people purchased guns in 2020, and there are more first-time owners too
• (23:39) The statistical likelihood of children coming to harm if they live with a firearm in their household
• (27:00) Just telling kids not to touch guns doesn't work (even if you think of your child as one who is 'sensible,' and you've talked with them about gun safety)
• (30:45) The Asking Saves Kids Campaign helps to keep kids safer
• (33:06) The surprising link between children involved in gun violence and the Peloton treadmill recall
• (36:07) In American culture, banning all guns can't be the answer
• (40:52) Effective Child Access Laws
• (41:45) How to create safer environments for children through building communities

[accordion] [accordion-item title="Click here to read the full transcript"] Jen Lumanlan  00:02 Hi, I'm Jen and I host the Your Parenting Mojo Podcast.   Jen Lumanlan  00:06 We all want her children to lead fulfilling lives, but it can be so hard to keep up with the latest scientific research on child development and figure out whether and how to incorporate it into our own approach to parenting. Here at Your Parenting Mojo, I do the work for you by critically examining strategies and tools related to parenting and child development that are grounded in scientific research on principles of respectful parenting. If you'd like to be notified when new episodes are released, and get a free guide called 13 Reasons Why Your Child Won't Listen To You & What To Do About Each One, just head over to YourParentingMojo.com/SUBSCRIBE. You can also continue the conversation about the show with other listeners in the Your Parenting Mojo Facebook group. I do hope you'll join us.   Jen Lumanlan  01:00 Hello, and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo Podcast. And today we're going to discuss a topic that I think is about to come into parents' consciousness in a way that it really hasn't as much over the last year. And for some of us, that's a result of our privilege....

New parents often worry about attachment to their baby - will I be able to build it? My baby cries a lot - does that mean that we aren't attached? If I put my baby in daycare, will they get attached to the daycare staff rather than to me? Based on the ideas about attachment that have been circulated over the years, these are entirely valid concerns. But it turns out that not only should we not worry about these things, but the the research that these ideas were based in was highly flawed. It's often forgotten that attachment theory was developed in the period after World War II, when policymakers were trying to get women out of the jobs they had held during the war, and back into their 'natural' place in the home. In one of his earliest papers Dr. John Bowlby - the so-called Father of Attachment Theory - described 44 children who had been referred to his clinic for stealing, and compared these with children who had not stolen anything. He reported that the thieves had been separated from their parents during childhood, which led them to have a low sense of self-worth and capacity for empathy. He went on to say that “to deprive a small child of his mother’s companionship is as bad as depriving him of vitamins.” But much later in his life, Bowlby revealed that he had conflated a whole lot of kinds of separation into that one category – everything between sleeping in a different room to being abandoned in an orphanage. And in addition to being separated, many of the thieves had also experienced physical or sexual abuse. The fear that spending time apart from your baby will damage them in some way is just not supported by the evidence. What other common beliefs do we hold about attachment relationships that aren't supported by evidence? Well, quite a lot, as it turns out! Listen in for more. Check this episode for more attachment research: What it is, what it’s not, how to do it, and how to stop stressing about it   https://yourparentingmojo.com/rightfromthestart/   Link to the book mentioned:

Cornerstones of Attachment Research (Affiliate link).

    Jump to highlights:

• (03:30) Download the free Right From The Start Roadmap
• (06:11) Dr. John Bowlby, who is known as the founder of attachment theory
• (06:40) A brief overview of attachment theory
• (08:06) What is attachment theory
• (09:44) A closer look at the word attachment
• (12:55) Five aspects out of Freud's psychoanalytic theory
• (14:32) 44 Juvenile Thieves - One of the major ideas about separation from parents
• (17:50) What is the word monotrophy
• (18:49) The four dimensions that distinguish African-American views of motherhood from American views by Dr. Patricia Hill Collins
• (20:49) Aka Pygmy tribe in Africa
• (21:37) What is PIC or Parental Investment in the child Questionnaire by Dr. Robert Bradley
• (24:19) The Strange Situation Procedure developed by Dr. Mary Ainsworth
• (30:30) White middle class mothers in Baltimore stand for what attachment should look like in families of all types around the world
• (33:36) Two main cross cultural studies
• (40:13) The cognitive thinking component of the attachment relationship
• (47:29) What is Outcomes
• (01:01:25) Summary

  [accordion] [accordion-item title="Click here to read the full transcript"]   Jen Lumanlan  00:03 Hi, I’m Jen and I host the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. We all want our children to lead fulfilling lives. But it can be so hard to keep up with the latest...

"Psychological Flexibility" sounds amazing.  Shouldn't we all want that?  After all, psychological flexibility has been significantly positively associated with wellness during the COVID-19 pandemic, and negatively associated with anxiety, depression, and COVID-29-related distress and worry. (But what is it, anyway?!) Psychological Flexibility is about being fully in touch with the present moment and, based on the situation, either continuing or changing your behavior to live in better alignment with your values. Let's break that down a bit: Being fully in touch with the present moment: We spend a good chunk of our lives not fully present.  And there are times when it makes sense - we don't necessarily need to be fully present for every moment of a long drive.  As long as we're present enough to drive safely, we don't need to observe the exact quality of red in the tail light of the driver in front of you. But when we spend most of our lives zoned out on our phones, or rushing from one activity to the next (probably partly so we don't have to sit down and just be), we aren't truly present. Better alignment with your values: We all have values, although perhaps some of us haven't fully articulated them.  We might value raising an independent child, but then step in every time they struggle.  We might value emotional closeness but struggle to actually do it because our parents didn't model it for us.  When we articulate our values, we define what we're working toward. Based on the situation, either continuing or changing your behavior: One of my favorite parts of ACT is the Choice Point: the point at which something doesn't feel right to you.  At this point you get to decide: Am I going to keep doing the same thing I've always done?  Or am I going to do something that brings me into better alignment with my values?   Want to know more?  Dr. Diana Hill, co-author with Dr. Debbie Sorensen, joins me on this episode to discuss their new book ACT Daily Journal: Get Unstuck and Live Fully with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (this is an affiliate link, so I will earn a small commission through your purchase which does not affect the price you pay).  The book walks readers through a series of exercises to help them become more psychologically flexible, through the practice of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).  The concepts in ACT are ones that I've found to be enormously useful both personally and in working with clients, so I'm excited to tell you about them here!   Dr. Diana Hill's Book:

ACT Daily Journal: Get Unstuck and Live Fully with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (Affiliate link).

  Jump to highlights:

• (01:26) What is ACT or acceptance and Commitment Therapy
• (02:07) What is this thing psychological flexibility?
• (03:48) What are the components of psychological flexibility?
• (08:07) Cognitive diffusion
• (11:38) The idea that we could believe that our thoughts are not true is mind boggling to a lot of people
• (16:36) Values and parenting in particular is such a good one to discuss
• (18:20) Values are something that are deep within you, that you can pull upon, when you've got nothing left
• (19:10:) The idea of the choice point
• (23:36) Perspective taking is probably one of the most important skills we can do for ourselves
• (27:01) How do we live out committed action
• (33:55) Our children are naturally beginner's mind
• (35:18:) One of the things that actually sets humans apart from robots, is our ability to think outside